Obviously, this was not posted or completed in time for Simply Snowbarry's Valentine 2020 challenge- I know y'all said late posts were okay, but I bet you weren't thinking you'd get one THIS LATE. I AM SO SORRY.

But, uh, I stuck all the Valentine Challenge prompts in there that I could- see if you can spot them all ;) once I post the second chapter. LOL.

Enjoy the Snowbarry season 2 rewrite/pregnancy fic/fluff, friends!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Flash/DCTV

Caitlin was wholly unfamiliar with the feeling of dread rising in her stomach. Her hands were shaking, her breaths came out in quick pants, and she was visibly trembling. Dimly, she could hear the dry, ragged sob that broke through her lips, her free hand flying up to cover her mouth as the tears started slipping down her cheeks.

It wasn't supposed to last, she knew. This wasn't supposed to happen. Oh God, this wasn't supposed to happen.

She had woken up that morning, feeling sick and tired and went to the doctor expecting it to be…not this. She was a planner, meticulous with her work and schedule and most aspects of her life. Sure, everything that happened after the Particle Accelerator explosion and the emergence of the Flash had gotten her to loosen up a little, but still-

Still-

Forcing herself to take deep breaths, Caitlin stilled her tears, and with her hands still slightly shaking, she carefully cleaned the plastic stick and put it back into its container and walked out of the bathroom, clutching it tightly in her fist.

In the end, she supposed it was kind of her fault. After Ronnie, Barry had come crashing into her life along with a freak lightning storm, and Caitlin, who had lost faith in just about everything, found it once more—found herself once more—in the spark in his bright, earnest green eyes, in his enormous heart and desire to help the people around him, in his wounds and bruises and in his pained, sheepish eyes when her hands stitched him back together again. It really, truly, honestly did not take much for her to completely fall head over heels for him. Barry was so different from Ronnie, but in a way that was new, like a breath of fresh air. She wasn't lying when she told Ronnie, when he asked her to marry him again, wasn't lying when she talked to Barry at Mercury Labs—she said no to Ronnie, both times, because she couldn't leave him.

Leave Barry, that is.

It wasn't as if her answer to him was a surprise to Barry. At least, it shouldn't have been, if she ever got around to telling him. It should have been obvious in the way she moaned his name, the way she clung to him so tightly in his bed, in her bed, on the nights where they craved someone's touch, someone they trusted and loved…though she was fairly certain that the way she loved Barry and the way Barry loved her were two very, very different things. He wasn't quick on the uptake. Caitlin was his best friend, but Barry had come to mean everything to her. She wanted more, but seeing the way he looked at Iris, seeing the twinkle in his eyes when he talked about the brilliant and beautiful Patty Spivot down in the CCPD—there was no way she could ask for more from him. In fact, she was the one who encouraged him to find the love that he deserved.

He deserved it. He really did. Everyone could see through the flimsy facades he put on; Barry wore his heart on his sleeve, and Caitlin would not stand in the way of his happiness. She just wanted him to be happy, despite her own feelings toward him.

But now, it wasn't just about her feelings; this was so much bigger than her and so much bigger than Barry and Central City and everything else in her entire world that had now condensed to this one tiny thing growing inside her belly. It wasn't, Caitlin knew objectively, but as her maternal instincts flared to life, she couldn't help but feel that way.

It really was kind of her fault, though. Her last mistake—the night she finally cracked the secret to distilling a potent enough form of alcohol to knock Barry way past buzzed and well into completely smashed. He, for the first time since becoming the Flash, had finally gotten drunk, and she drank along with him—something less potent for her, of course—and then one thing led to another that really shouldn't have been surprising given their weekly midnight rendezvous complete with what Barry thought was a sweet, platonic breakfast in her or his kitchen the next morning, but it was completely possible that in their haste to rip the clothes off of each other, they'd forgotten about any sort of protection.

The moment they woke up, there had been a meta-emergency that required them to immediately speed to the lab, so it was also entirely possible for Caitlin and Barry to have been so used to having protection that they just…forgot. Caitlin could beat herself up about it all day. She shouldn't have been careless. She should have remembered, should have thought about it and at least made sure, but-

She put a hand on top of her still-flat stomach, and in that one single second before she had to deal with the inevitable train wreck that was going to be the rest of her life, she promised the little life inside of her that was no bigger than an apple seed she would do everything she could to protect it.

Despite the pit in her stomach every time Caitlin thought about Barry, actually seeing him was a hundred times worse. It felt like someone had dropped an anvil into her midsection, weighing her down; she had to force a smile when he waltzed into the med bay later that afternoon, whistling happily.

"Cait!" he greeted her enthusiastically.

Apparently, something in her expression gave her away, because Barry's face fell almost immediately. "Are you okay?"

Great, she wanted to say, her eyes flitting over to her purse on top of the desk where she had stashed the pregnancy test she took that morning, still showing the two lines on the tiny screen. Fantastic; the sun is shining, you're beautiful, I'm in love with you while you're clearly in love with someone else, and I'm pregnant with our child.

Maybe not the best way to breach the subject. Maybe she could just move away, maybe move to Keystone City for a while, for the remainder of her pregnancy, and give her and her child some space. Their child.

She sighed.

"I'm fine," Caitlin said tiredly, waving him off. "Just haven't been getting enough sleep these days."

Barry's eyes furrowed, moving closer to her. "Are you sure? I can get you to the doctor to make sure, and-"

And whatever else he was going to say was lost when Caitlin felt her stomach turn; she lurched toward the closest trash can with a speed that could have given Barry a run for his money and made it in time just scant seconds before she emptied her rather meager breakfast into it. Barry immediately zoomed to her side, holding her hair in his hands and rubbing soothing circles on her back.

"Cait, I think we should get you to a doctor," he murmured, waiting out her retching. Caitlin didn't even have the energy to shake her head, to snap back at him and say, 'I am a doctor, damnit.' She wasn't angry at him, she knew, but she could feel her emotions starting to leak all over the place as she was still reeling and trying to recover from the events of the morning.

"Water," she rasped, pointing to the general direction of her purse without looking away in case she had more to throw up. Barry flashed over, but the wind from his speed accidentally knocked her purse over—which didn't actually contain a whole lot aside from the water bottle weighing it down—causing its contents to spill all over the desk.

Silence.

Caitlin gingerly pulled a tissue from the tissue box next to the med bay bed and wiped her mouth on it, looking over at Barry to see what was taking him so long and found him dumbstruck, standing in front of her bag and holding a very familiar-looking plastic stick. The blood drained from her face when he turned, agonizingly slowly, to face her.

Barry made some sort of half-hearted excuse to Cisco in the Cortex about Caitlin not feeling well, and despite her protests, immediately grabbed the good doctor, grabbed her stuff, and flashed her home. The world whirled around her until they were standing in front of her apartment door, Barry holding out her keys for her in his right hand. Seeing the stony expression on his face, Caitlin nervously bit her lip and unlocked her door, letting both of them inside.

He rounded on her nearly immediately.

"Caitlin," he said as soon as the door closed. "What was that?"

She buried her face in her hands, reining in her emotions. How was she supposed to answer him when even she barely knew what was going on?

Breathing deeply through her nose, Caitlin sat down on her couch, still refusing to look up at him. "I just found out this morning," she replied quietly, her emotions making her voice wobble. For a moment, neither of them moved. Footsteps padded over to her, and she could hear the rustle of Barry's clothes as he kneeled in front of her, his hands gently prying them away from her face. It wasn't until then that she noticed-

Barry's hands were shaking too. Their eyes met, thousands of words in them, and yet, nothing being exchanged between them. It took him a while to find his voice, after swallowing hard a few times.

"Is...is it...mine?"

Caitlin would later blame the shock and the hormones for how everything in her snapped at that moment, and she burst into tears. "Barry," she cried, sniffling, "I'm so sorry, I swear it was an accident-"

It was either a testament to their friendship or Barry's big heart that he immediately pulled her close, her words muffled by his jacket. He was still in shock and trying to process, completely at a loss for words, so, in his experience with grief...he went back to the basics, trying to do what he could at the moment instead of thinking of everything else he couldn't control.

"No," he said gently. "No! Why...are you apologizing?"

She pushed away from him, hastily wiping at her eyes. "If I hadn't…if I had been more careful…"

Wordlessly, Barry took her hands, rubbing his thumbs comfortingly over her knuckles. They might have been co-workers, might have been fellow scientists, might have slept together, might have made mistakes, but it had always been clear to them that first and foremost, Caitlin Snow and Barry Allen were best friends, and nothing, not even something like this, could cause them to abandon the other. Besides, Caitlin couldn't possibly place the blame on herself. They were both at fault.

He thought very, very carefully about his next words. About what they implied, what they meant for him and his kind-of-sort-of-budding relationship with Patty and his lifelong feelings for Iris, what they meant for the rest of his life. It was surprising how much those things seem to fade in comparison to this one thing now. This…baby…this life that was now growing inside of Caitlin, it was a fact. It was as much his responsibility as it was hers. His right hand came to lift her chin up so that she was looking at him, and with a comforting smile, Barry opened his mouth and said-

"Hey. I'm with you, okay?"

To his surprise and slight horror, Caitlin only started crying again. This was better than any scenario she had imagined since she took the test and found out earlier that morning, better than she had dared hope for. The loneliness and panic and terror she had felt the whole day melted away, slowly seeping out of her the longer Barry's calm green eyes held her teary ones.

She sniffled again, clearing her throat and wincing when her voice still came out as a raspy whisper. "Really?"

Barry chuckled, pulling her into another hug. "Yeah, really," he whispered when she started to sniffle harder. Not that he wasn't terrified, and not that he didn't even have to ask her to know how scared she felt, but because…well, because they had each other. They had always taken care of each other, and he'd be damned if he let that change. It had to be true, now more than ever. "Always."

It took them a few weeks of awkwardness and fumbling interactions, trying to test and not overstep boundaries, but Barry and Caitlin eventually struck a balance in their odd relationship. It wasn't quite a romantic relationship, but it wasn't just friendship—it had never been just friendship, they realized the more they thought about it—not that they said anything to each other about it. On that note, they didn't tell anyone about the pregnancy either; they decided to delay it as long as possible, even to tell their family and friends. How would they even begin to explain?

Besides, if word got out about Caitlin's pregnancy, with Caitlin already being a high-profile target when it came to metahuman activity, things could potentially get dangerous.

That didn't stop them from exploring their newfound equilibrium, though. She dropped by the precinct more for lunch during the week, and if Barry wasn't at the station or moonlighting as the Flash, he was at S.T.A.R. Labs or at Caitlin's apartment. They went out more together, with Barry putting an arm protectively around her shoulders more often than not, and she leaned into him as much as she dared to as they walked and talked and laughed during those afternoon hours they could get a break from work. Caitlin and Barry's apartments both began to fill up with baby books that Barry absolutely speed-read through, and though they hadn't actually done anything after discovering the pregnancy, they still occasionally spent the night at the other's apartment—Barry's overprotective personality meant he always felt better when he knew Caitlin was nearby, and Caitlin's hormones, calmed only by Barry's presence, acted up more than the books all said they should, as a possible side effect of carrying a half-speedster baby.

The metahuman physiology was also another thing that gave them a headache. They needed to know whether Barry's superspeed influenced the baby in any way, but Caitlin's doctor declared the baby happy and healthy before they disclosed the baby's metahuman origins, so the two young parents breathed a sigh of relief and that was that.

Things were smooth sailing for a few weeks, with the two—three, three of them developing and settling into their routines.

Then Jay Garrick walked into the Cortex at S.T.A.R. Labs.

Despite the results of Caitlin's lie detector test, Barry was still unsure and suspicious of the newcomer. He told her as much that night after his rough run-in with the fire at the waterfront and the sand metahuman who had tried to pulverize him with its rough punches.

"I mean, he just comes out of nowhere to warn us about Zoom not long after we first hear about this guy, and he's volunteering so much information right off the bat. What if his information is wrong? What if it's a trap, and he's working with Zoom?"

Barry ran his hands through his hair, sitting at the edge of his bed. Glancing around, he mentally took stock of the space in his room, and then turned his attention to the living room outside. His apartment would not nearly be big enough for him and Caitlin and the baby, and Caitlin's apartment didn't really have the space for a baby; maybe they could pool their resources to get a bigger place—he saw a loft for sale the other day, and resolved to check it out and ask the listed agent about it tomorrow.

His brain screeched to a halt, making him outwardly wince. He and Caitlin hadn't even started talking about space for the baby yet, or their living situations, or whether or not they would move in together—he just assumed they would, because honestly with the amount of time they spend together and with the new and exciting deepening of their relationship, Barry couldn't imagine another night without Caitlin by his side. By now, they spent most of their nights together anyway.

"Look, Barry," Caitlin replied, coming out of the bathroom in her pajamas after drying her hair. "I know that you're still upset about Doctor Wells-"

He almost rolled his eyes at the name, but she paid him no mind, standing in front of him. "-but Jay passed every test I did on him today, and he gave us some key pieces of information on Zoom we wouldn't have gotten otherwise."

Barry did scoff at that. "Yeah, he sure did," he bit out, his tone grating and rough. "And made googly eyes at you all afternoon while he did it too. I locked him in the Pipeline tonight for a reason, Cait, something is just telling me I shouldn't trust the guy."

Caitlin tried, she really did, but she couldn't help the amused grin that slowly spread on her face. She bit her bottom lip, looking down at her baby's father. "Wait a minute," she said teasingly. "Are you…jealous?"

It took everything in her to not burst into giggles when Barry just grumbled and reached out to pull her closer, hugging her around the waist and putting his pouting lips on her still mostly-flat stomach, whispering to the baby inside. She wasn't showing much; it was barely noticeable, even if someone was really paying attention to her. Carding her fingers through his hair, Caitlin bent over to press a gentle kiss on his head, momentarily astounded at how things, how they, how their relationship had changed in such a short time.

Caitlin Snow had been terrified plenty of times in her life, but there was nothing that could come close to the way she was feeling now, sitting behind the console inside the Cortex and listening to each ragged breath that came through the comms, watching as Barry's vitals plummeted at an alarming speed on her screens.

This wasn't the plan.

Barry was taking hits, far too many far too quickly, and then came the moment that would haunt her the rest of her days: Zoom's lightning-charged fists hit him one final time, and then the sound of Barry's spine shattering and his scream of pain resonated through the speakers in the Cortex.

Bringing her right hand to cover her stomach as if she could shield their unborn child from the horrors that were facing them now, Caitlin could only watch on in sheer terror with Cisco next to her, sharing in her fear, that fear growing when Zoom intercepted Harry's tranq shot. That was it—their only hope of taking Zoom down, gone.

"Never forget," they heard Zoom's raspy growl say through the comms. "I am the fastest man alive."

The screens in front of Caitlin were flashing, the electronic beeping at an all-time high as Barry's vitals dropped to almost nothing.

"He's killing him!" she cried.

It was only a couple of minutes after that when Harry ran back inside the Cortex, and then mere moments after, in a burst of blue lightning, Zoom appeared. Caitlin and Cisco immediately stood, backing away from the monster, who was holding something red and still in his grasp.

"Barry!"

Zoom ignored them, his scarecrow mask only facing Harry, who was standing across the console from Caitlin and Cisco.

"Harrison Wells. You thought you could defeat me with this?"

"I made a mistake," Harry whispered, wide-eyed and wound tight with anger and fear, looking very much like a caged animal.

The mask's mouth was a gross congelation of gray matter as Zoom responded, an impossible and dangerous glint shining in the mask's black eyes. "Yes…a costly one."

Before any of them could so much as move, he stabbed Barry in the stomach with his gauntlet, the hero's eyes widening in pain. "Goodbye, Flash. You, too, weren't fast enough."

The dart full of speedster tranq whizzed out of nowhere, hitting Zoom in the neck—Cisco had gotten his hands on the gun when they were all preoccupied, and the villain fell with a loud cry, dropping Barry to the ground and flashing off in blue crackles of lightning. Harry ran after him with an earth-shattering scream of, "no…NO!" but Caitlin had no time for him, couldn't even begin to bring herself to feel sorry for him or to pause at the guttural anger and despair she could hear in his tone. The only thing she could focus on was her fallen—

There was no time to dwell on that thought either, because despite wearing her uncomfortable heels in her already-delicate condition, she ran around the console faster than she ever thought she could and crashed onto her knees next to Barry, who was silent and still on the ground. She pushed through her frantically beating heart and the terror lodged in her throat, blocking her airway, and forced herself to breathe, to focus. Lacing her fingers together, she started on chest compressions, allowing her medical training to take over her body on autopilot.

"Stay with me," she pleaded. "Stay with me, Barry. Stay with me. Please, Barry, please!"

He didn't respond, his shallow breaths not deepening despite her best efforts. "If you die," Caitlin threatened through gritted teeth, her voice cracking on the last word, "I'm going to kill you myself, Barry Allen. Do you hear me?!"

Fortunately for all of them, Caitlin didn't have to commit murder—but she stayed by Barry's side through Joe's fit of anger and Harry's confession, through Iris running in to check on him in the afternoon and well into the evening after he had been stabilized. Joe, through Iris' wheedling and a lot of convincing, had gone home, and only after Caitlin promised to call if anything changed with Barry. Harry went off to brood, and Cisco—she assumed he had gone home; it was quickly approaching a late dinnertime, and the rumble of her stomach jolted Caitlin out of her thoughts to just how much time had passed.

Between checking over Barry and making sure his vitals were stable, making sure his regenerative abilities kicked in like they were supposed to despite his extensive injuries, she had completely lost track of time. Caitlin may have been a workaholic, but it wasn't often that she completely forgot to eat, especially since there was someone else she had to worry about now. Bringing her hand to her stomach, she rubbed her belly in comforting circles, sitting in the swivel chair next to Barry's bed.

"You must have been so scared today," she said softly to her baby. "Mommy was so scared. You probably felt it, didn't you?"

She took Barry's left hand in her free one, continuing to comfort their unborn child. "There are things here that Daddy and Mommy need to protect you from. And sometimes, people get hurt. Daddy…Daddy got very hurt today."

Caitlin's voice gave a little, her emotions coming down from their excruciating high in the afternoon to let everything that had happened in the past few hours sink in. She remembered the sickening sound of Barry's spine shattering, recalled his completely motionless body on the Cortex floor, and between the trauma and her hormones, her tears were flowing before she could even register they were there.

"But Daddy's going to be fine, okay? Daddy isn't going to just leave you. He's got superpowers, you see—he isn't just the fastest man alive, he also has super healing. Mommy had to help him-" help being a gross understatement of everything she had done today, recounting all the bloodied cotton balls and bandages and gloves she had to go through that were now in the S.T.A.R. Labs' incinerator. "Mommy had to help him today, but Daddy's going to be okay, okay? He has to watch you come into this world," Caitlin said softly. "He has to watch you grow up and play with you and teach you and love you. Daddy and Mommy are both so excited to meet you. Daddy just needs to rest a lot before he can be with you and talk to you, so you and Mommy are going to have to stick with each other for the next few days, okay?"

She shouldn't have had her back to the door, because the very next minute, she nearly leapt out of her chair when she heard a rustle and a cough behind her. Cisco stood sheepishly in the doorway to the med bay, holding up two bags of food. "I knew you were going to forget to eat today," he told her matter-of-factly, "so I got us dinner."

Caitlin looked like a frightened deer caught in headlights, her doe eyes wide and worried. "How…much of that did you hear?"

Cisco shrugged, but he had never been a good liar. He just grinned helplessly. "All of it…?"

Cisco, the best friend anyone could ever ask for, managed to convince Caitlin to go home for the night despite her protests of not being able to rest anyway with all the worrying she was doing about Barry. He had reminded her over and over that pregnant women needed proper rest, or, at least, a proper place to rest, and the S.T.A.R. Labs med bay and Caitlin's lab just did not make the cut.

"Just tell the kid that I'm the best uncle," he said as he basically pushed her out the door, promising to call if anything changed with Barry, and threatened her he would personally send her home if she so much as stepped one foot into S.T.A.R. Labs before 8:30am.

Completely unsurprisingly, Caitlin was there at 8:30 sharp the next morning, sending Cisco home to get some sleep. And yet, Barry still wasn't awake. His healing abilities had definitely done a lot of the work, but as Caitlin had told a frantic Joe who rushed in around 9am, his body and mind were still resting from the entire ordeal. She repeated that to him, to herself, throughout the day…into the next…and into the next.

It wasn't until the fourth day that Barry begin to stir, a sense of déjà vu knocking into Caitlin when Cisco, who was leaning against the supplies rack while talking to her, looked over at him and said excitedly, "Hey, I think he's waking up!"

She nearly flew to his bedside, standing up so fast her chair rolled underneath the desk behind her.

"Barry. Barry?" Caitlin's trained eyes swept over him as she called to him softly. "Can you hear me?"

Finally, finally…he opened his eyes.

"Hey," he greeted them, voice hoarse and rusted from disuse. Relieved smiles broke out on Cisco and Caitlin's faces, the former letting out a chuckle.

"You scared the crap out of us." Cisco's expression quickly turned serious, indicating the severity of the situation. "You were gone for a long time."

Caitlin's agreeing nod was what really drew Barry's attention, her beautiful smile gone. "How bad is it?" he managed to ask through his dry throat, pushing the words past his cracked lips.

A thin sheen of water covered her eyes, but to her merit, she let nothing fall. "Bad," she whispered after a moment. "If…you didn't heal so quickly, I'd be very worried."

She spoke too soon, she realized only about thirty seconds later, when Barry's wide, terrified eyes met hers.

"I can't feel my legs."